Roman's Vow (Riley's Pride #4) - Sandra R Neeley Page 0,56
gave a nod again, and stepped back from the truck to let Lucas drive away. He fucking hated this. He wanted to be the one to handle this shit. He knew all the reasonable arguments, but it didn’t make his beast any happier about letting Lazarus and Lucas take all the risks.
His peripheral vision picked up movement in the front window of his trailer. He smiled at the little girl making goofy faces at him and made one back at her. This… this was the reason he needed to stay home and let his friends handle the shit show for him. He couldn’t risk his own safety because this little child was depending on him to be beside her every step of the way as she grew into womanhood, and he was damn sure going to do it.
He started toward his home, sending up a quick prayer to the powers that be for protection over his friends while they did what they had to in order to help him free his mate.
~~~
Lucas sat at the back booth of a truck stop, sipping coffee and reading one of the free local papers they offered on a rack when you first walked in. He’d been here for going on three hours, worked his way through the standard INTERNET bullshit on his phone, moved on to the paper and it was already 9:00 A.M. He’d have to move to a different location soon or it would look suspicious. But that was fine. He’d planned for it. It was why he’d stopped at the furthest truck stop from the actual city limits he could find as he began to approach the town Lazarus and Talie were in. He figured he’d spend a couple hours in several different truck stops until he actually hit the city limits, then he’d just drive around or lay low until he heard from Laz. And that was exactly what he did.
Once it got a little later in the day, and he’d worked his way through his fourth truck stop, he drove around for a while until he happened on a small park with a pond in the middle. He spent a few hours exploring it, until he got bored. Then, when it started to get dark, he hunkered down in the truck with his ball cap pulled down low over his eyes to get a little shuteye. By midnight he was awake again on the hunt for an all night diner to get something to eat and some more coffee. And it was there he sat at the breakfast counter in the wee hours of the morning, staring at the T.V. mounted on the wall behind the breakfast counter, sipping his third cup of coffee after having finished a huge breakfast when his phone finally pinged. Lucas reached out and swiped his phone screen. He read the message from Lazarus, just an address with a message that said ‘heading out now. Be there in 30’. He plugged the address into his maps app and studied it for a minute to see where it was, then dropped some money on the counter and walked out.
He wasn’t sure if Laz wanted him to meet him there in thirty minutes, or if Laz was simply letting him know he was going to be there in thirty minutes, but either way, Lucas was going to meet him there. He wasn’t about to let Lazarus go in alone knowing there could be multiple males in the building.
~~~
It was 3:30 A.M. when Lazarus finally finished helping Patch clean up and closed up the bar for the night. He’d made sure to keep Candy busy there until they’d locked the doors and were about ready to leave. He needed her to leave right before he did so he could follow her. He figured she was going to her own place and he knew where that was, but he didn’t want to be that far behind her. He wanted to have the distraction of her getting home to Frederick to take the attention off himself as he joined the party unexpectedly.
As Candy finally slipped out the back door, Lazarus took off the white apron he wore that identified him as an employee and folded it, laying it on the bar top. “Hey, Patch, you mind if I borrow your car?” he asked.
“Car’s not running right. Brakes giving trouble, but I got something better if you're interested,” Patch said.